Google's chief executive and co-founder, Larry Page, has slated Facebook for "doing a really bad job with its products", while also taking a swipe at Apple, as the war between the companies intensifies.
The interview with Page was conducted by Wired magazine last month, before Facebook had announced both its Graph Search tool and its addition of free calls for Facebook Messenger users in the US.
Schmidt: 'We’re imitating Microsoft’s lead against Apple from 20 years ago' Google aims to lure '90 per cent of Microsoft Office users' Facebook, Google attack MEP report calling for tougher restrictions on use of personal data
Page, whose comments were published yesterday, claimed that he does not think of competing with Facebook as a motive for creating Google's social products.
"It's not the way I think about it. We had real issues with how our users shared information, how they expressed their identity, and so on. And, yeah, they're a company that's strong in that space. But they're also doing a really bad job on their products," he said.
"For us to succeed, is it necessary for some other company to fail? No. We're actually doing something different. I think it's outrageous to say that there's only space for one company in these areas," he added.
Google could be said to have impinged on Facebook territory when it announced its social network Google+, and many believe that Facebook's decision to go with Bing for its Graph Search tool is deliberate as it looks to compete with Google's most important asset, its search engine.
But Page insisted that there is space for competition in every area.
"When we started with search, everyone said, 'You guys are gonna fail, there's already five search companies'. We said, 'We are a search company, but we're doing something different'. That's how I see all these areas," he said.
Page, who replaced Eric Schmidt as CEO in April 2011, said he was "very happy" about how Google+ and Android have worked out.
When asked about Steve Jobs' claim of going "to thermonuclear war" on Android, Page responded, "how well is that working?".
He went on to state that buying Android was always going to be vindicated because it was a long-term plan.
"At the time we bought Android, it was pretty obvious that the existing mobile operating systems were terrible. You couldn't write software for them. Compare that to what we have now. So I don't think that betting on Android was that big a stretch. You just had to have the conviction to make a long-term investment and to believe that things could be a lot better," he said.
